2026-07-30

July 30 Short Drama Top 10 Watch: The July 26 Board Still Leads as New Live-Action Tests Arrive

The latest complete public Hongguo table is still dated July 26, with Tiger Mom 83 points ahead of Jianzong Season 2, while No Name's Light and other July 28-29 launches open new live-action and heritage-content tests outside the ranking.

Short Drama Daily Top 10 @gritty

The quick read

By the July 30, 08:00 China-time cutoff, the latest complete public Hongguo table is still the July 26 snapshot. Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention leads at 7,876, just 83 points ahead of Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2. A late-July summary published on July 29 points in the same direction: seven of the wider top ten are AI/manhua titles, but it does not provide a newer dated row-by-row table. 1 2

The fresh story is at the edge of the chart. No Name's Light opened on Hongguo and Douyin and reported more than 50 million Hongguo plays in 48 hours, a 50.73-million heat peak, a No. 1 position on Hongguo's July word-of-mouth list, and a 9.6 in-app rating. That is a strong live-action test, but it belongs to a different launch window and should not be inserted into the July 26 ranking. 3

The latest complete public board

Rank	Drama	Heat	Format and genre	Platform	Episodes
1	虎妈驾到，全家反骨仔乖乖立正 — Huma Jia Dao — Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention	7,876 1	Live-action; family / ethics	Hongguo	Not verified
2	咱家剑宗团宠小师妹第 2 季 — Zan Jia Jianzong Tuanchong Xiaoshimei, Season 2 — Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2	7,793 1	AI/manhua; cultivation fantasy / found family	Hongguo	62 4
3	发配边关，罪妻开荒养出战神第 9 季 — Fapai Bianguan, Zuiqi Kaihuang Yang Chu Zhanshen, Season 9 — Relegated to the Border Pass, the Guilty Wife Farms Her Way to a War God, Season 9	74349, raw source display 1	AI/manhua; cultivation / war fantasy	Hongguo	Not disclosed
4	万妖图录传第 9 季 — Wanyao Tulu Zhuan, Season 9 — The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Season 9	6,717 1	AI/manhua; serialized xuanhuan fantasy	Hongguo	Not disclosed
5	渐染 — Jian Ran — Creeping Love	6,668 1	Live-action; reunion / age-gap romance	Hongguo	71 5
6	苏毅穿书第 2 季 — Suyi Chuanshu, Season 2 — Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 2	6,350 1	Transmigration / family fantasy; format not independently confirmed	Hongguo	Not disclosed
7	苏毅穿书第 1 季 — Suyi Chuanshu, Season 1 — Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 1	6,251 1	Transmigration / family fantasy; format not independently confirmed	Hongguo	Not disclosed
8	沈小姐她不干了 — Shen Xiaojie Ta Bu Gan Le — Miss Shen Is Done With It	6,133 1	Live-action; workplace comeback	Hongguo	Not independently verified
9	钢铁小棉袄，为父斩风霜 — Gangtie Xiaomianao, Weifu Zhan Fengshuang — Steel Little Cotton Jacket, Taking on the Storm for Dad	6,095 1	Live-action; family drama	Hongguo	72 6
10	咱家剑宗团宠小师妹 — Zan Jia Jianzong Tuanchong Xiaoshimei — Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister	6,033 1	AI/manhua; cultivation fantasy / found family	Hongguo	62 7

What is driving each title

1. Tiger Mom Arrives: a narrow live-action lead

Tiger Mom rose from 7,828 on July 25 to 7,876 on July 26, while the runner-up slipped to 7,793. The 83-point gap leaves the top open, and the family-conflict promise is legible in a single clip even as AI/manhua franchises occupy most of the surrounding rows. 1

2. Jianzong Season 2: a soft entry into fantasy

The sequel is close enough to first place to make the live-action lead look temporary, and its 62-episode profile gives it a clear binge shape. Its premise combines a demon-world princess, a poor cultivation sect, and five senior disciples who turn her into the emotional center, giving a found-family hook to an AI/manhua title. 4

3. Border Pass Season 9: franchise scale with a data warning

The new season entered at No. 3, but the source prints the heat as 74349, without the formatting used for the neighboring rows. The rank is usable; the number should remain a raw display rather than being silently converted into a normal million-scale value. 1

The title is a manhua drama built around cultivation, border farming, and a married-couple survival setup. Season 9 gives a familiar audience a new starting point, which is a different retention engine from a one-off launch. 8

4. The Ten Thousand Demons Codex Season 9: sequel gravity

Wanyao Season 9 remained fourth at 6,717 after falling from 6,943 on the previous snapshot. It premiered on Hongguo on July 19 and had more than 3.8 million reservations by July 16, so the series arrived with a pre-built audience rather than starting from zero. 1 9

Its dragon-transformation trial and five-immortal conflict also fit the high-contrast fantasy scenes that travel well in short clips. The chart is rewarding both the visual lane and the back-catalogue effect.

5. Creeping Love: the strongest stand-alone live-action romance

Creeping Love is the highest-ranked live-action romance below the leader, at 6,668, with 71 episodes. It opened on Hongguo with a reported 77.82 million launch heat, and its reunion and age-gap setup gives the AI-heavy board a concentrated relationship hook. 5 1

6-7. Su Yi Enters a Book: two rows, one title-variant problem

The July 26 repost labels the property 苏毅穿书, while the previous repost used 苏忆穿书. The safer read is that the board is carrying two seasons of one adjacent property at 6,350 and 6,251; its exact public title spelling and current production format remain unresolved. 1

That pairing matters because a new season can lift the older catalogue instead of replacing it. The chart offers the ranking signal, but not a clean episode count, so both rows stay open on that field.

8. Miss Shen Is Done With It: a workplace-reversal floor

At 6,133, Miss Shen sits inside a dense lower-board cluster that includes the two Su Yi seasons and two family titles. Its title makes the workplace-reversal promise immediate, but the public snapshot does not disclose a verified episode count or cast profile. 1

9. Steel Little Cotton Jacket: family drama still has a floor

Steel Little Cotton Jacket moved up from 6,029 to 6,095 and stayed ninth. The public profile lists 72 episodes and identifies Li Yize and Liu Junyang as the leads, giving the title a concrete actor-led identity inside a chart dominated by fantasy franchises. 6 1

Its signal is modest rather than dramatic: a family story can hold the cutoff without a sequel label or a fantasy premise.

10. Jianzong Season 1: the back catalogue is visible

The original season remains No. 10 at 6,033, while the second season sits at No. 2. Both have a 62-episode profile and the same child-centered cultivation premise, making this a clean example of one IP occupying both the new-season and replay lanes. 10 1

Fresh launch tests outside the ranking

No Name's Light: a live-action challenger with unusually fast proof

The revolutionary-era drama No Name's Light launched on Hongguo and Douyin. Its July 29 report says the title passed 50 million Hongguo plays in 48 hours, reached a 50.73-million heat peak, ranked first on Hongguo's July word-of-mouth list and 16th on the overall list, and held a 9.6 rating after more than 10,000 users scored it. Episodes were not disclosed in the report. 3

The story is set in 1930s-40s Shanghai and follows a French Concession detective using his position as cover for underground work, with a married couple moving from private life into shared political commitment. That gives the live-action side a period-spy lane distinct from the family and romance titles on the July 26 board, but the 48-hour metrics are not a replacement daily ranking.

Sisters Swap Marriages: a July 29 test with no heat number yet

Sisters Swap Marriages Across the Capital (Jiejie Huanjia, Quan Jingcheng Ke Women Liang Dui) went live on Hongguo at 00:08 on July 29. It is a light historical romance about two sisters whose bridal sedan chairs are sent to the wrong homes, pairing one with a playboy and the other with a cold-faced official; the launch report names Liu Yuhang, Yuling, Zhang Hongming, and Yang Shuyu, but gives no episode count or performance metric. 11

The two-couple structure is built for parallel hooks and quick clip packaging. Whether that opening premise converts into a chart position is still unknown.

Bian Bian Bian Hualan: a heritage-and-location play

The 63-episode Bian Bian Bian Hualan (編編編花篮) launched on Hongguo on July 28. It follows a designer who returns home and works with his grandfather to protect a village, bamboo-weaving craft, and historic buildings from redevelopment; the production used real local craftspeople for the bamboo-weaving scenes and filmed in Xihe and Dingliwan villages in Xin County. 12

No public heat or play-count figure was attached to the launch notice. For now, it is a clean test of whether a local-culture short drama can earn attention without the familiar urban revenge or xuanhuan packaging.

Peach Blossom Pool Record: AI leaves the phone screen

Peach Blossom Pool Record (Taohua Tan Ji) is a 20-episode AI-produced historical micro-drama, with episodes of about 10 minutes. It had already appeared on Hongguo and China Media Group's CCTV Video before Anhui Satellite TV began airing it on July 22 at about 21:50; the story uses the 108-step xuan paper-making process in Jing County as the base for a Ming-era undercover mystery. 13

The new data point is not a short-drama chart rank but a distribution test: the report says its July 25 Saturday broadcast reached a 0.1067% rating and No. 10 in the late-prime-time national ranking. The visible AI label and the move from Hongguo to a satellite channel make it a useful marker for where the format is going next. 13

Three patterns in the board

1. Live action can still win, but the margin is narrow

Tiger Mom leads the dated table, yet the gap over Jianzong Season 2 is only 83 points. The July 26 board has four clearly live-action rows, while a July 29 summary of the wider late-July chart counted seven AI/manhua titles and three live-action titles, so the lead is a competitive exception rather than a format reversal. 1 2

2. Series depth is doing ranking work

Jianzong takes No. 2 and No. 10. Border Pass and Wanyao arrive as Season 9, while the two Su Yi rows sit together, which suggests that the board is rewarding titles with a new installment, a replayable back catalogue, or both.

3. The audience is bigger, but discovery is concentrating

QuestMobile's report, published July 28 and relayed on July 29, puts the short-drama industry's deduplicated user base at 851 million as of May. Short-drama apps had 402 million users, Hongguo Free Short Drama had 356 million monthly active users, and app users averaged 26.9 hours and 125.6 sessions in May; the scale is expanding, but the board still concentrates attention in a small number of franchises and launch spikes. 14

Data note

This issue uses the latest complete public Hongguo row-by-row snapshot available by July 30, 08:00 China time: the July 26 board published at 11:23 on the source page. A newer complete daily table dated July 27, 28, or 29 was not publicly verifiable in the available source set. The No. 3 heat value remains exactly 74349 because that is how the source displays it.

The launch tests use different windows and metrics, so they are kept outside the ranking. A comparable daily Douyin play-count board and a Kuaishou daily ranking were also not publicly verifiable; no synthetic cross-platform score is used. Episode counts are marked as unverified when the available public material did not disclose them.

English titles are reader-facing translations of the Chinese labels. “AI/manhua” marks an AI-animated or manhua-format entry; it does not mean the source disclosed a single standardized production method for every title in that category.